The Russian Revolution 1917-1922.

The first section of the museum exposition devoted to the
history of the Russian revolution of the period from 1917 to 1922
depicts the circumstances, which led to the fall of the monarchic power
in Russia in March 1917, and describes the attempt to form a new
democratic state system.

The mass demonstration caused by shortage of bread, which
had begun on February 23, 1917 in Petrograd, developed within few days
into the real uprising and ended with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas
II.

This hall’s exposition culminates by the set of materials
devoted to the solemn ceremony of the burial of the February revolution
victims in the Marsovo Pole (Field of Mars) in Petrograd on 23-th of
March 1917, which was attended by about a million people. The fall of
monarchy was enthusiastically welcomed by the majority of the Russian
population, though this became only the beginning of a promptly
developing revolutionary process and a deepening socio-political crisis
in the country. The hall has a dominant in the form of the symbolical
figure of a soldier reminding that Russia entered the revolution, when
being at war, and the Petrograd garrison soldiers, mostly “peasants in
soldier’s coats”, became the momentum of the February uprising. The
soldier P. I. Slesarev’s letters home from Petrograd exhibited here help
to go into the atmosphere of those days more deeply.

The next sections of the permanent exposition “The Russian
Revolution 1917-1922” are devoted to the October coup events and the
Civil war which broke out in the territory of the former Russian Empire.

In the summer of 1917, Russia was in a stretching situation:
collapsing economy, string of political crises, subversion in the army
and defeats at the front. The provisional government led by its
Minister-Chairman A.F. Kerensky lost the control over the country. The
new Supreme Commander-in-Chief General L.G. Kornilov proposed to
Kerensky to stop the rot in Petrograd by joint efforts. However,
Kerensky’s concerns about that General would dispossess him of his
absolute power, forced him to confront Kornilov. The events of the late
August 1917, gone down in history as “Kornilov Affair”, brought the
country to the next political crisis, weakened even without that
precarious position of the Provisional government and allowed the
left-wing radical political forces to strengthen significantly their
positions in the capital. In the autumn of 1917, the Bolsheviks had
begun actively preparations for the military takeover which they staged
in Petrograd from 24 to 26 October. The provisional government was
deposed, its ministers were arrested, and Kerensky had the time to leave
the capital. The Bolsheviks formed their own government – the Council
of People's Commissars, suppressed the armed rebelions and proceeded to
the creation of a type of state that was new in the world history -
Republic of Soviets.

Formally, the new government had been provisional also until
the All-Russian Constituent Assembly was convoked. Lenin and his
fellows in arms could not refuse from its convocation at once. But they
dismissed the Constituent Assembly just after its first session on
January 6, 1918, having unambiguously shown to their political
contenders and all population of Russia that they had taken authority
seriously and were not about to give it back without struggle.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed by the Soviet government
with Germany in March 1918 caused also discontent of the
patriotically-minded part of the Russian population, since according to
this treaty the country was losing the large territories and should pay a
huge contribution.

All these events became stages leading to the extensive Civil war
which broke out in the territory of Russia in the Summer of 1918.

The exposition depicting the development of the Russian revolution
from the second half of 1917 to the beginning of 1918 contains unique
original things of the participants of the Kornilov rebellion and
October coup, as well photographs, leaflets and other documents
illustrating the events of the Russian history of the specified period.

The documentary film on that time allows to see the basic characters
of those stretching days - L.G. Kornilov, A.F. Kerensky, L.D. Trotsky,
as well as to watch the events in Petrograd on the Constituent
Assembly’s opening day.

The prologue of the hall devoted to the Russian Civil war history
shows the generalized way of life of the ordinary people who took on the
main severities of that terrible time. The special space is provided
for the audiovisual program “Civil War in Russia. Diaries and Memories”,
which allows to appreciate and experience various aspects of the Civil
war tragedy in a much brighter and much more emotional way.

All major contenders for power in Russia, who turned the country to a
battle-field - parties of the Bolsheviks, “revolutionary democracy” and
the White movement, which the foreign military intervention had
significantly contributed to, are represented here by their program
documents, leaflets, propaganda posters, photographs of leaders and
ordinary participants of the events. The rare stock footage make
possible to see the well-known figures of both red and white movements,
to get to know the daily life in the territories under their control.

A separate set of documentary, photographic and consumer
goods is devoted to the insurrectionary peasant movement, so-called “the
green”. The peasantry constituted a majority of the Russian population
and the outcome of Civil war depended mostly on its position.

Also, the attention is paid to the events which took place
in the specified period of time in the national regions of Russia. The
October coup induced the process of declarations of the national state
entities, the most of which counteracted the central power of the
Soviets. The Baltics, Ukraine, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia saw
complicated political processes associated with armed struggle, in
which, in addition to national forces, both the Bolsheviks and
representatives of the “revolutionary democracy” and White movement
supporters took their part.

The special role in the exposition belongs to the set of the exhibits
depicting the Kronstadt insurrection in March of 1921. This revolt
forced V.I.Lenin to come to terms with the peasant majority of the
country and to announce the New economic policy.

The Civil war final in 1922, as well as a final part of our
exposition, culminates with the appearance of the new state - the Union
of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) - on the world map and forced
emigration of more than two million of Russia’s residents from their
homeland.